The Dragon Gate — Where Blood Flows Like a River
On both sides of the Dragon Gate, the endless Lannister host advanced in tight, disciplined formations.
What had begun as a surprise assault reversed in an instant. The attackers became the besieged.
The High Mountain clan warriors who had just forced their way through the narrow gate tunnel barely had time to understand what was happening before arrows rained down from above. The sky itself seemed to bristle with iron. Men fell mid-stride, pinned to the earth, their momentum dying in choking gasps.
The surviving men under Gregor Clegane—those who had been driven forward by their own commanders—now fought like cornered beasts. With death looming behind and before them, they erupted into savage fury. Red-eyed and roaring, they swung axes and swords with reckless desperation at the High Mountain warriors who had breached the city.
Armed with heavier armor and better steel, and driven by a suicidal resolve, the Lannister soldiers surged forward in a brutal counterattack. Pure momentum carried them. The gate, which Karl Stone's forces had only just seized, was retaken in a storm of blood and steel.
The pressure became suffocating.
Every step cost lives.
Flesh tore. Iron clashed. Screams blended into a single, relentless roar.
Even Bronn—who moments earlier had fought with swagger and showmanship—could no longer leap and weave as he pleased. Men fell around him one after another. Forced back step by step, he ducked low and retreated to the base of the city wall, pressed tight against cold stone.
There, alongside Jon Snow and the surviving High Mountain warriors, he fought simply to stay alive.
Karl Stone, who had intended to press forward alone and capture the king amidst the chaos, halted when he saw the tide turn. The approaching Lannister army closed in from both flanks, their banners visible even through the smoke and confusion.
A flicker of urgency stirred in his chest.
He turned sharply, scanning the battlefield.
His gaze found Jon Snow and the others—isolated, cornered, struggling beneath a forest of spears.
They were not within the relative safety of the gate tunnel. Behind them rose the sheer wall of the city—an insurmountable barrier. They had been forced into a dead end.
It was a graveyard waiting to claim them.
As Karl's eyes swept further, he noticed Cheegen—the mercenary who had followed Bronn faithfully. An arrow had struck him from above, piercing through the crown of his skull and exiting near his jaw. His lifeless body slumped against the wall, as though dragged there in his final moments.
A sharp pain stabbed through Karl's chest.
Above, Kevan Lannister stood upon the battlements, calm and detached, observing the slaughter like a man watching rain fall upon distant fields.
Karl raised his sword, shattering two incoming arrows in swift succession.
"Kevan Lannister!" he roared. "Wait until I take your head! It will hang as the finest banner ever flown over the Dragon Gate!"
But fury did not blind him.
He had built this force carefully, painstakingly. Every warrior was hard-earned capital. Each death cost him dearly.
He could rush forward now—cut through the chaos and attempt to reach Kevan—but to what end? Even if he succeeded, the Lannisters would not retreat. They had only one road left: victory or annihilation.
Karl was not so trapped.
In that moment, his heart churned with frustration. He cursed Tywin Lannister in silence. Men called the Mad King insane—but desperation had driven Tywin no less mad.
Reluctantly, Karl made his choice.
He would not abandon the gate he had paid so dearly to seize.
If the Dragon Gate fell again, the price would be catastrophic.
Snarling, Karl abandoned thoughts of assassination and plunged back into the fray.
In his left hand gleamed the gilded longsword once belonging to the Kingslayer. In his right, he wielded the monstrous two-handed greatsword taken from Gregor Clegane.
In his grasp, both weapons became instruments of slaughter.
This was no skirmish. This was a battle that could end only in death.
Karl moved.
His massive frame surged forward like a battering ram. The six-foot greatsword swept in wide arcs, extending nearly three meters from his body. Within that radius, nothing survived.
He became a living meat grinder.
Each swing carved through armor and bone alike. Helmets split. Heads flew. Blood fountained into the air before crashing down in red sheets.
Those few who slipped past the reach of the greatsword found the gilded longsword waiting—thrusting cleanly through throats and gaps in breastplates.
Blood soaked his chainmail, streamed down his limbs, pooled at his feet. He looked less like a man than a demon dragged up from the seven hells.
Yet in this battlefield madness, no one paused to marvel at the terror he wrought.
Every Lannister soldier fought for survival. They sought only to drive the enemy back into the narrow tunnel and escape the deadly rain of arrows from above.
The High Mountain warriors had no retreat either. The tunnel could not hold them all, and more of their own men continued pressing in from behind. To hesitate meant being crushed or slaughtered where they stood.
There was no right or wrong here.
Only survival.
And survival demanded blood.
"Hold! Hold the line!"
Jon Snow's voice cracked beneath the roar of combat.
Fewer than twenty men remained in that desperate pocket against the wall.
Within seconds, the number dwindled further.
One fell to a spear through the ribs. Another was dragged down beneath three attackers. A third collapsed with an arrow in his throat.
In less than half a minute, only Bronn, Jon Snow, Hall, and two other clan warriors still stood.
Around them, Lannister soldiers pressed forward in tight formation. Spears bristled outward like a field of iron wheat, swaying as one.
Pinned against the wall, Bronn raised a scavenged shield. His sword lashed out, but his movements had grown heavy.
Three spearpoints thrust toward him simultaneously.
He deflected two.
The third grazed his shoulder and sliced across his neck, drawing a thin line of blood.
He tasted iron in the air.
The spears withdrew—
—but never struck again.
A massive blade crashed sideways, smashing three skulls in a single sweeping blow.
"Stand up! Don't sit there waiting to die!"
Karl had arrived.
Using the greatsword like a club, he smashed through the Lannister line, bones breaking under the impact. With his other hand, he thrust the gilded longsword through a soldier's throat, then kicked the corpse free.
The kick was monstrous.
The armored body flew backward, crashing into two more soldiers and sending them sprawling.
Jon Snow, disarmed and scrambling, rolled to avoid incoming blades. Two swords rose high above him—
—and then their wielders were struck down in a tangle of limbs.
Hall moved swiftly, retrieving Jon's fallen blade from the blood-soaked ground. He shoved it back into Jon's hand and hauled him upright.
"Move!" Hall snapped. "Stay close to the Boss!"
Karl cut left and right, clearing a brief pocket of space. Arrows that flew toward him were swatted aside without a glance.
In moments, he carved a path back toward the gate tunnel.
Two clan warriors fell in the retreat, pierced by spears from unseen angles.
Karl did not look back.
"Into the tunnel!" he shouted. "Regroup and hold!"
Bronn fell in behind him, shield raised. Jon Snow followed, breathing raggedly but upright once more.
They crossed back into the shadowed mouth of the Dragon Gate.
The darkness felt almost comforting after the blazing chaos outside.
Jon leaned on his battered sword, gagging as the rush of adrenaline drained from his limbs.
When he finally raised his eyes again, the battlefield had shifted.
The arrow rain ceased.
Outside the tunnel, the Lannister army reformed into disciplined ranks. Silent. Ordered.
Inside the tunnel, the surviving High Mountain warriors gathered, bloodied and breathing hard.
Between the two forces lay a carpet of corpses.
Armor glinted beneath torchlight. Blood pooled in thick, dark rivers, seeping between the stones of the Dragon Gate.
For a brief, terrible moment, the world seemed still.
No arrows.
No shouting.
Only the heavy breathing of men who had glimpsed death—and returned.
Across the killing ground, Lannister banners stirred in the wind.
Inside the gate tunnel, Karl Stone stood at the forefront, greatsword resting against his shoulder, blood dripping steadily from its edge.
The Dragon Gate had become exactly what its name now promised.
A place where blood flowed like a river.
Advance Chapters avilable on patreon (Obito_uchiha)